A Merry Little Christmas
by evilmanray
Summary: AU. Ivan ignored all the other little orphans prancing around and beating each other up with holiday gusto and walked straight over to the pretty, yet lonely, looking one in the back. Russia/China, Ivan/Yao.
1. Part 1

**Title**: A Merry Little Christmas

**Pairings**: Russia/China (America/Canada, France/England, Sweden/Finland, Korea/Hong Kong, Germany/N. Italy, Denmark/Norway)

**Summary**: AU. Ivan ignored all the other little orphans prancing around and beating each other up with holiday gusto and walked straight over to the pretty, yet lonely, looking one in the back. Russia/China, Ivan/Yao.

**Disclaimer**: Dude, no. If I owned APH, then this wouldn't be on a _fanfiction_ website, now would it?

**A/N**: Kid!fic at the beginning. Yes, you know what that implies—Little!Russia/Little!China. Yeah… it's not Christmas… far from it, in fact, but… you know. I had a plotbunny that wouldn't go away. This was also just a little break from my RoChu chapter fic, Enchanted :) Also, if you find any typos, wanna point them out?

* * *

Ever since he and his older sister had been adopted, said older sister had dragged him back the orphanage where they resided in the past to bring Christmas presents to the other orphans. Every year, Ivan would just bring one present that he bought with his own money for someone he saw fit. Last year, he became quite good friends with a little boy from Lithuania, Toris, though they only talked for about five minutes when a boy—or was it a girl?—from Poland dragged Toris away. But, this year, Ivan was ten! He bought a stuffed cat fit for a pretty girl, because he was kind of starting to get interested in the other gender in some way. His older sister had only chuckled and ruffled his hair in an endearing way when he told her of his plan to make friends with a girl.

"Maybe," she'd said, smiling sweetly. "Just maybe."

Ivan's boots made a '_plop_' sound as he followed his wonderful sister and the director down the polished hallways of the orphanage, and he gripped the stuffed cat in his gloved hands tightly. A couple orphans messing around in the hallway stared him, his older sister, and the toy in his hands as if they were the second coming. Nobody would touch the toy, unless they wanted a face full of spirited Russian fist. He was saving it for whomever he deemed special enough to earn his attention, and the greedy little kids eyeing it with want surely weren't going to get it.

"Here are where most of the kids your age play during the day," the director suddenly said, and opened a door for him. "You can go play with them, if you want."

"No," Ivan replied.

The director frowned.

"Oh, don't be silly, brother!" Ivan's older sister laughed nervously, and shoved him into the room with a push to his back. "Play nice! And remember—no hitting! Not everybody likes to play Stalin versus Hitler."

"… You let him play a game called that?!" the director gasped.

"It's a fun game!" Ivan argued.

"Now, now, brother. Go play," his older sister warned him nicely one last time, before leaving with the director and shutting the door behind her.

Great, now Ivan was stuck in a room full of crazy orphans. Two blondes were fighting in the middle of the room over whose turn it was to play with another, smaller blonde with glasses. Eventually, another little blonde with glasses walked over.

"W-We can all play together, eh? Can't we?" he said quietly.

"Mattie!" the other tiny blonde with glasses cried, and clung to him. "Francis and Arthur are fighting over me again!"

"I'm not playing with _him_!" the older one with huge eyebrows snorted.

"I wouldn't play with you if you were the last person on Earth," the other said in response.

"You're so stupid, Francis!" Eyebrows shouted to 'Francis'.

"You said the 's' word!" 'Mattie' inhaled loudly.

"What? 'Stupid'?" Eyebrows repeated.

"You have a potty mouth!" the unnamed blonde with glasses giggled.

"Potty mouth Arthur!" Francis chorused. "And your eyebrows look like caterpillars!"

Ivan watched as Eyebrows—no, _Arthur_, tackled Francis to the ground and began repeatedly pulling his hair. Francis didn't seem to mind. Instead, for some strange reason, he actually seemed to _like_ it. Ivan shook his head. A lot of the girls in his class were mean to the boys they liked. Maybe Arthur liked Francis? Glasses and Mattie snuck off when the older two weren't looking, and joined a brown-haired boy playing dress-up with another blonde.

"I'm a little maid from Italy!" the brunette cheered. He latched onto the uncomfortable looking blonde at his side. "Ve, Ludwig, and you're my Holy Roman Empire!"

Ludwig only blushed and shouted, "Feliciano!" Mattie and Glasses started laughing at him.

"You know, I invented mistletoe!" an Asian in the far corner of the room shouted at another Asian, this one with bushy eyebrows. Not as a bushy as Arthur's, but still noticeable.

"Really?" Asian Eyebrows asked skeptically.

"Yeah! You have kiss when you stand underneath it!" Liar told him, and held up a piece of paper with a poorly drawn picture of what looked to be a bush on it. Asian Eyebrows stared at it, confused. "See? It's mistletoe! We're both under it! Now you have to kiss me!"

"Kiss you?" Asian Eyebrows repeated.

"I invented kissing!" Liar said. "So, yeah, we have to kiss."

Ivan looked away. Some things were not worth seeing.

"Here, Berwald!" another blonde said, dressed in a Santa costume, and held out a neatly wrapped box to _another_ blonde with glasses. Only, this guy actually looked kind of scary. But Scary allowed himself a small smile as he took his present from Not Santa, and Not Santa's smile grew wider. "Open it, open it!"

"I w'll lat'r," Scary said. "On Chr'stm's."

"Okay!" Not Santa said happily, and stood on his tiptoes to give Scary a kiss on the cheek. Scary's face automatically burst out into the brightest red Ivan had ever seen. He was really getting into the holiday spirit, the Russian figured. He didn't know anybody who loved the holiday _that_ much to even change colors for it. "I love you, Berwald!"

"L've y'u, too, T'no," Scary—no, _Berwald_ said. "Y'ur m'wife."

"I'm not your wife!"

"Check out this axe!" another tall boy chimed in loudly, and began swinging a paper axe around. Not Santa screamed and hid behind Berwald, while the boy with Axe Murderer, who looked like a sailor and had a crazy curl, did not look amused.

"That's stupid," Sailor Curl said.

"It's totally cool!" Axe Murderer told him. "It's beast!"

"You're retarded," Sailor Curly muttered.

"Hey!" Not Santa said. "Use the other 'r' word. _Respect_."

"Sorry," Sailor Curl said sarcastically. "Gee, Denny, you're so _respectable_."

"You know that's right, Norge!" Axe Murderer said.

Sailor Curl rolled his eyes.

Ivan walked over and sat at a table with another emotionless Asian boy, and a sleepy looking tan kid drawing on pieces of paper.

"Hi!" Ivan said.

Both didn't acknowledge his presence.

"This is… me and you… under an umbrella," Tan said to Emotionless Asian, sliding him a piece of paper.

Emotionless Asian's red face almost rivaled Berwald's.

"H-Heracles!" Emotionless Asian stuttered.

The Russian leapt up from his seat, deeming Emotionless Asian and Heracles stupid, and then noticed a little boy in the back, sitting on a chair all by himself and trying to braid his hair. Ivan ignored all the other little orphans prancing around and beating each other up with holiday gusto and walked straight over to the pretty, yet lonely, looking one in the back. Pretty and Lonely looked up at him with beautiful, almond-shaped eyes, and Ivan tripped on the carpeting and was about to fall face first, but Pretty and Lonely's hand caught him.

"Hi," Ivan said.

"… Hello, aru," Pretty and Lonely replied softly.

"My name is Ivan Braginski!" Ivan said proudly.

"I'm Wang Yao," Pretty and Lonely introduced himself. "… I mean, Yao Wang."

"Hi, Yao!" Ivan held out the stuffed white cat in his grip to Yao. "Merry Christmas!"

"… What's this?" Yao asked.

"A present! For you!"

"For me?"

"Da! It's pretty, just like you. You're prettier than _all_ the girls in my class!"

"Thank you, aru!" Yao's eyes lit up so brightly that Ivan was temporarily blinded when the other reached out and grabbed the stuffed cat. "This is so nice! I've never gotten such a great Christmas present before! What's its name?"

"… It's a toy."

"I'll name it Shinatty!"

"Shinatty?"

"Shinatty! Isn't it cute, aru?" Yao smiled. "Xièxiè."

"… What?"

"That's 'thank you', in Chinese."

"Oh! Then, pozhaluĭsta!"

"Is that 'you're welcome'?"

"Da, in Russian! Maybe I'll see you again next year, comrade?"

"I hope so!"

All too soon, the door to the playroom opened, and his older sister was beckoning for him to leave the room. Ivan waved to Yao good-bye, and the Chinese boy smiled and waved Shinatty's paw at him. As soon as he walked over to the door and out the room, his older sister placed a hand on his head and ruffled his hair. The director also smiled kindly at him.

"Did you make any friends?" his sister asked.

"Da!" Ivan answered.

"Ooh, was she pretty?"

"Da, he was _very_ pretty!"

"What a lucky boy you are, brother!"

"Are we going to come again next year, sister?"

"We always do, Ivan. We always do."

But, the next year, his older sister didn't take him. Instead, he had to help prepare for the adoption of his new younger sister from Belarus, named Natalia. Ivan would rather be at the orphanage talking to Arthur and Francis than he would spend time with his crazy new sister. She was absolutely obsessed with him, and declared them married, despite the fact they were legally siblings. He was very worried about her, and every time he told his parents or his older sister about it, they laughed and giggled and joked about what a 'cute' couple he and Natalia made. Well, he hated Natalia, and they would just have to suck it up and deal. No way would he _ever_ marry her.

The year after that, he all but begged his sister to take him back, as things with Natalia had settled down at home. He'd even bought a stuffed panda to take to Yao this time. His sister, once again, said things were too busy. Their adoptive father, 'Mister Winter', as he liked to be called, was in a bit of a work overload and couldn't lend the car. Year after year, he begged to be taken back to the orphanage to see Yao again, and year after year, the panda stayed underneath his bed, collecting dust, because his older sister had thought up another excuse. This year, Ivan was finally seventeen, and had a license. He was old enough to drive on his own. He grabbed the stuffed panda he'd bought six years ago for Yao, took Mister Winter's car without permission, and set off for the orphanage once again.

The director obviously recognized him as soon as he walked through the doors. He hadn't changed much over the time period. If anything, he'd just grown much taller and muscular. She smiled and waved him over to her desk.

"I remember you," she said hoarsely. What used to be a nice, middle-aged woman was now a silver-haired old lady. "You're that little boy who used to bring in Christmas presents with your sister."

"Da, that was me," Ivan said, and gripped the stuffed panda tighter. "I'm actually looking for someone…?"

"Oh?" the director turned to her computer. "Who?"

"Yao Wang, I believe was his name."

The director didn't even have to use the computer. She simply smiled sadly at him.

"I'm sorry, but he and two other children were adopted the year after the last year you came," she said.

"… Oh."

"You made this whole trip out in the snow though, dear! Why don't you stay for dinner?"

"Da, I will."

She stood up and led him to the dining room, where the children were clamoring for dinner and the older kids were trying to calm them down. Things had changed since he'd last been there, that was for sure. Arthur and France—Ivan remembered they hated each other quite profoundly—were now sitting probably a little too close together and arguing heatedly over something. But, instead of being flush with anger, it looked like Arthur seemed to be _embarrassed_. Glasses was sitting next to Mattie, and Ivan could tell his hand was on Mattie on a place that was most likely not appropriate for dinner, if Mattie's squirming was anything to go by.

Feliciano kept whining about pasta while Ludwig kept trying to get him to keep it down. Tan boy looked lonely, sleeping all by himself at the end of his table. Not Santa was holding hands with Berwald on top of the table, while Axe Murderer was ranting about something to Sailor Curl (who still looked like a sailor and still had that curl) with much enthusiasm. Sailor Curl actually seemed to be listening, and throwing in appropriate comments here and there. Asian Eyebrows sat by himself, looking longingly at the chair beside him. Ivan decided to sit there.

"Hello!" he said.

Asian Eyebrows nodded.

"You are quiet, comrade," Ivan noted. Asian Eyebrows raised one of his bushy eyebrows. "What is your reason?"

Asian Eyebrows said nothing.

"Do you remember a Yao Wang?" Ivan pressed.

"Yao Wang?" Asian Eyebrows seemed to perk up at the mention of that name. "Yes, I knew him, a long time ago. He was adopted along with Kiku Honda and Im Yong Soo."

"Do you know where he went?"

"I still e-mail Yong Soo, actually. They're moving back up here soon."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Thank you, comrade!"

Of course, not even a week later, a new boy named Yao Wang transferred into Ivan's high school. He managed to catch up with the Chinese boy after all classes had ceased for the day. Yao still looked the same, only taller, more lithe, and _definitely_ still pretty.

"Hey," Ivan said.

"Hello, aru," Yao replied, then did a double take once he realized who was walking next to him. "Do I know you?"

"I'm Ivan Braginski, comrade."

"… I remember you. You gave me Shinatty!"

"I did! Please, wait one second." Ivan swung his backpack off of his shoulders, unzipped it, and pulled out a stuffed panda. He was suddenly glad he picked today of all days to stuff it into the bottom of his backpack. Yao was surprised when the stuffed panda was pushed into his hands awkwardly. "Here. I was going to give this to you the next Christmas, and the one after that, and the one after that… but you were adopted, and I could never get a chance to go. It's past Christmas, I know, but I'm hoping this still counts."

"… It counts." Yao smiled, and hugged the panda close. "Hey, listen… Are you busy tomorrow, aru?"

"No," Ivan answered. "Not busy at all."

"Good."

* * *

**A/N**: Oh, this was so fun to write :3 So cute. Drop me a line? Also, typos? I hate them.


	2. Part 2

**A/N**: Because this was just begging to be done in Yao's perspective. And you all wondered why I didn't put it as complete ;)

* * *

Christmas was officially stupid. Yao watched as the other orphans skipped around like idiots and gave each other presents and pulled each other's hair and did other dumb little kid things that he was way too mature for. He was _ten_. Ten-year-olds didn't mess around or color in coloring books. No, ten-year-olds did fun _ten-year-old_ things, like try to be a good role model and teach the tinier children. His plan, so far, had failed. He _was_ going to educate everybody on how there was no such thing as Santa Claus (he knew, because he hadn't gotten a present that wasn't an orange for a _long_ time, and what kind of stingy holiday fat man gave kids _oranges_? One that didn't exist, obviously), but then Tino had cut in, dressed in his usual festive Santa costume, and declared he had presents for everybody. Everybody, meaning his best friend, Berwald. A couple of kids groaned. They'd heard Tino's spiel every year.

Yao had retreated to a chair in the corner of the room, and tried to braid his hair without using a mirror. A girl from Taiwan dared him that he couldn't do it, and, well, he would show her. There he sat, still trying to braid his hair. It was actually getting kind of frustrating, so he decided to stop for a moment and watch everybody else. Arthur and Francis were doing their usual; fighting over Alfred until Matthew came to break them up and take his brother away. He thought he heard the door to the playroom open, but the center of his attention was currently Matthew.

"W-We can all play together, eh? Can't we?" the Canadian muttered so quietly that just about no one heard. Yao, of course, had impeccable hearing, so he caught it.

"Mattie!" Alfred suddenly shouted, and then grabbed onto him. Matthew's face was tinged with the slightest amount of pink, and Yao stifled a giggle. Those two were just so _cute_. Arthur and Francis, on the other hand… not so much. If anything, their constant fighting was kind of annoying more than half of the time. "Francis and Arthur are fighting over me again!"

"I'm not playing with _him_!" Arthur shouted.

"I wouldn't play with you if you were the last person on Earth," Francis said back, voice just as full of malice as Arthur's, but Yao could hear the playful undertone to it.

"You're so stupid, Francis!" Arthur hollered.

"You said the 's' word!" Matthew gasped.

"What? 'Stupid'?" Arthur repeated, utterly confused.

"You have a potty mouth!" Alfred declared, pointing at Arthur.

The British child glared daggers at his much younger 'friend'.

"Potty mouth Arthur! And your eyebrows look like caterpillars!" Francis sang with just enough French lewdness behind it to make Arthur tackle him, which was what anyone could tell he was planning on having happen from the beginning of the fight. Francis, though he was only ten (and noticeably less mature in the ways of responsibility than Yao), had probably one of the most perverse and devious minds of them all. Arthur began pulling on the Frenchman's hair, and Francis continued to repeatedly sing his counterpart's name and laugh like some stupid, lovesick idiot. It was kind of common knowledge Francis had one of those 'boycrushes' on Arthur, but Yao didn't understand what was so enticing about huge eyebrows, a foul mouth, a rather violent temper, and an accent that sounded like he had something stuck in the back of his throat.

The French, Yao decided, were weird.

Matthew and Alfred snuck off to go play with Feliciano and Ludwig, who were, absolutely, the most blatantly in love pair of people Yao had ever met. They always ate lunch together. Sometimes Kiku joined them, but most of the time, Kiku was busy trading his granola bars for more fruit with Heracles. That, or he and Heracles were just excluding everyone else and taking between themselves. Well, not really. Kiku would mostly say nothing, and Heracles would mumble in his sleep. Yao _had_ tried to be friends with Kiku, and it worked out for a bit, until Heracles came and Kiku went all starry-eyed over his foreign Greek godliness. Or so Yao supposed. But they weren't the point.

The point was that Ludwig had the biggest boycrush on Feliciano since forever. It was more blatant than Francis's want to kiss Arthur on the lips, which was scandalous in the world of ten-year-olds. The only way you could not notice that Ludwig liked Feliciano was if you were either A, mentally challenged, or B, Italian. Well, northern Italian. The southern Italian brother, who was busy throwing building blocks at that way-too-happy kid from Spain, kind of noticed and always threatened to throw his toys at Ludwig if he ever touched his brother. Also, 'potato head' seemed to be a favorite insult of his for the poor German orphan.

"I'm a little maid from Italy!" Feliciano said proudly, displaying his _made for girls dress-up costume _to his German best friend forever before hugging him tightly. "Ve, Ludwig, and you're my Holy Roman Empire!"

"Feliciano!" Ludwig spluttered.

The Italians were weird, but not as weird as the French.

Matthew and Alfred apparently seemed to share the same sentiment, because they started guffawing like idiots. Well, Alfred laughed out loud. Matthew sort of had some odd giggle thing that Yao saw a lot teenage girls do near attractive teenage boys. Maybe Matthew liked Alfred? This was a new, serious development. Yao would have to discuss this with his kind-of-friend Arthur later.

"You know, I invented mistletoe."

Oh, no.

Yong Soo, a proud Korean, was probably the weirdest of them all, French and Italian _combined_.

Yong Soo held up a piece of paper with some kind of foliage drawn on it and dangled said paper in Hong Kong's face. The other Chinese boy did not seem amused, or have any feelings toward the paper, actually.

"Really," Hong said, looking over the side, bored, but Yao could hear the bit of skepticism in his voice. Leave it to Hong Kong to trust everything Yong Soo said. Did everyone but Yao have some sort of boycrush? This was getting really old, really fast.

"Yeah! You have to kiss when you're underneath it!" Yong Soo said loudly, and stood up on his tiptoes, holding the paper above Hong's head. Hong stared at it, looking quite confused and a bit put-off. "See? It's mistletoe! We're both under it! Now you have to kiss me!"

"Kiss you?" Hong repeated.

"I invented kissing. So, yeah, we have to kiss."

Yao wanted to intervene and preserve Hong's innocence _so_ _badly_, but he realized anything he would have done wouldn't have been as awesome as Hong shoving Yong Soo over onto the floor and storming away like the easily embarrassed little boy he was. Yao had taught Hong well, it seemed. Yong Soo hopped up off of the floor and ran after Hong, leaving his little mistletoe to flutter in the breeze of his wake.

"Here, Berwald!" Tino's annoying voice then caught his attention. He was still wearing that stupid Santa suit. He pulled out a box from behind his back and gave it to the Swede with him. It was the same box Tino gave Berwald every year, and Yao guessed it was probably the same picture of them from the past years as the gift in that box, too. Yao knew Berwald kept that picture under his pillow (because that really wasn't creepy at all), and that Tino fished it out every Christmas to re-gift it to the taller, scarier boy. Berwald smiled in front of everybody for about the first time the entire day (or year). "Open it, open it!"

"I w'll lat'r," Berwald garbled out. "On Chr'stm's."

He was probably just tired of pretending to be surprised by the _same present every year_, Yao thought.

"Okay!" Tino said, and stood on his toes to give Berwald a kiss on the cheek.

Well, that was new.

Berwald blushed rather profoundly, and Tino laughed.

"I love you, Berwald!" the Finn said cutely, twisting his toes on the carpet in that imbecilic way girls did around the boys they liked. Yao supposed it was the same dynamic. Tino was _pretty_ girly. The person who really rivaled him was that kid from Poland, Feliks, who no one but his best friend, Toris from Lithuania, knew whether he was a girl or a boy. No amount of persuasion attempts from Berwald could lead Toris into answering, either. The gender of Feliks would forever remain a mystery.

The Polish were also weird.

"L've y'u, too, T'no," Berwald said. "Y'ur m'wife."

"I'm not your wife!" Tino protested.

That was seriously a lie, because Yao knew for a fact that Tino was always the mommy when he and Berwald played house with that white dog of theirs as the baby. How two humans had a dog for a child, Yao didn't know, but Berwald and Tino were already unnatural to begin with.

"Check out this axe!" Denny, the kid from Denmark, shouted, and began swinging around his paper axe. No one knew his real name, so they all called him 'Denny', short for 'Denmark'. And no one knew the name of his Norwegian buddy, either, so most people called him 'Norge'.

"That's stupid," Norge grumbled.

"It's totally cool!" Denny argued, and swung his axe around again to prove his point. Tino kept trembling behind Berwald, since he was a scaredy-pants. "It's beast!"

"You're retarded," Norge said.

"Hey!" Tino piped up. "Use the other 'r' word. _Respect_."

"Sorry," Norge apologized sarcastically. "Gee, Denny, you're so _respectable_."

"You know that's right, Norge!" Denny answered loudly, and swung his axe around one more time, narrowly missing the top of Berwald's head.

Norge rolled his eyes.

Tino, obviously, was almost in tears. That _paper axe_ could have almost torn his boycrush's head off. Yao wanted to laugh.

"Hi!" the voice of somebody he didn't know reached his ears, and he noticed someone sitting down on the plastic chair next to Heracles. The Greek boy didn't hear the new kid over the sound of his love for Kiku, and then he slid his Japanese friend a picture.

"This is… me and you… under an umbrella," Heracles said.

"H-Heracles!" Kiku stammered, face going red.

Oh, how Yao wanted to take that drawing, crumple it up into a ball, and shove it down Heracles's throat. No one did anything inappropriate to Kiku. _No one_. He then saw the ignored kid hop down from his chair with a plop. Their eyes locked for a moment, and Yao hurriedly went back to trying to braid his hair and tried to will the blush off of his face. Not everyday did one see purple eyes as bright and determined as those of the new boy. Suddenly, the new boy tripped, but Yao reached out and caught him before he could shatter his face on the carpeted floor.

"Hi," the kid said, as if he hadn't tripped seconds ago.

"… Hello, aru," Yao said in return quietly.

"I'm Ivan Braginski!" the other told him happily.

"I'm Wang Yao," Yao introduced himself. He paused. Wait. "… I mean, Yao Wang." The whole given name first deal was kind of confusing.

"Hi, Yao!" Ivan shoved a stuffed toy that Yao hadn't even noticed he was holding in his face. "Merry Christmas!"

"… What's this?"

"A present! For you!"

"For me?"

No way.

"Da! It's pretty, just like you. You're prettier than _all_ the girls in my class," Ivan said seriously, nodding.

"Thank you, aru!" Yao reached out quickly and snatched the stuffed cat in Ivan's grip, half-expecting for the other boy to say 'just kidding!' and take the toy back. But, so far, the most Ivan had done was stare at him with some kind of sparkly fascination. "This is so nice! I've never gotten such a great Christmas present before! What's its name, aru?" _All_ toys had names, didn't they?

"… It's a toy," Ivan said.

Yao took a moment to think.

"I'll name it Shinatty!" he said.

"Shinatty?" Ivan repeated.

"Shinatty! Isn't it cute, aru?" Yao allowed himself a small smile, and decided to humor, and possibly impress, the new boy with some Chinese. "Xièxiè."

"… What?"

"That's 'thank you', in Chinese."

"Oh! Then, pozhaluĭsta!"

"Is that 'you're welcome'?"

"Da, in Russian! Maybe I'll see you again next year, comrade?"

"I hope so!"

The door suddenly opened, and the director and an unfamiliar woman were gesturing that it was time for Yao's new friend to leave. Ivan waved good-bye, but Yao didn't want him to leave. Ivan was, in a way, his first _real_ friend. Instead of whining and crying and trying to make Ivan stay, Yao simply grabbed a paw of Shinatty's and waved it back and forth to Ivan with a smile.

"Who was that?" Arthur asked, suddenly at his side.

"Oh…" Yao shrugged. "Someone I just met, aru."

Arthur and Francis exchanged a sly look.

* * *

"So, you're name is Yao Wang, is it?" the woman asked politely. She sat next to her husband, and they held hands on top of the table. Yao gave them a long, hard stare, and the woman countered it well. He clutched onto Shinatty tighter for a feeling of comfort. Why did these people want to talk to him around Christmas? He was waiting for Ivan to come back and be his best friend again! "… Yao?"

"What, aru?" Yao asked.

The woman smiled and chuckled amusedly.

"Your name _is_ Yao Wang, isn't it?" she asked.

"In America," Yao answered. "In China, it's Wang Yao."

"Oh, that's so sweet," she cooed. "Would you like to go back to China?"

"No."

She seemed surprised.

"… No?" she repeated.

"No," Yao affirmed with a head nod. "I'm waiting for someone, aru."

"You're so cute!" Her sugary smile made Yao seriously want to throw up. That smile was cavity inducing. She elbowed her lifeless husband. "Isn't he, dear?"

"Huh?" he said, startled. He gave Yao a look, and muttered, "Yeah, sure, honey."

"Whom are you waiting for, dear?" she pried.

"My friend, Ivan," Yao told her.

"… Yvonne? That's a pretty name!"

"It's _Ivan_. And _he's_ not _pretty_."

"Does he live here, also?"

"No."

"Oh. Where does he live?"

"I don't know, aru."

"… Oh? How do you know him?"

"He gave me Shinatty as a Christmas present."

"Who's Shinatty?" the husband asked.

"My cat," Yao answered, and held up his stuffed toy.

"You're eleven," the wife said. "Don't you think you're too old to carry around toys?"

"No!" Yao shouted. "I'm never giving up Shinatty, aru!"

"It's just a toy, sweetie," she tried again. "Wouldn't you like a _real_ cat?"

"No. Shinatty is the best cat. He's important to me!"

"You're important to us, too."

"Really, aru?" Yao raised an eyebrow. "Do you know how many other people just like you told me that?"

"Oh, honey, don't be so mean!" she chuckled. Yao didn't find it funny. He wasn't joking. "How would you like it if you came to live with us?"

"I wouldn't."

"… Why not?"

"I _told_ you. I'm waiting for Ivan, aru."

"We'd like it if you came to live with us."

"Good for you."

The husband and wife exchanged a glance and shared a smile.

* * *

Finally. _Finally_. They moved back to his hometown. Well, okay, the town wasn't Beijing, but it was the city that held the orphanage he'd stayed at for a while. He was glad to be back in the town, hoping that maybe he could find a couple of familiar faces among an overflowing sea of people. He could possibly see Arthur again. Or Hong. Or, hell, even _Francis_. But, while being introduced to his classmates in homeroom, he noticed someone slightly familiar sitting in the back on the class. He was tall and looked unusually sulky hunched over in the school desk, but with one look at Yao, his purple eyes exploded with joy and his smile became wider. Yao had a sudden feeling of déjà vu.

He had to answer a lot of questions that his stupid classmates asked; the most frequently asked one being 'How are you from Connecticut if you're Chinese?' People these days were losing their ability to process thoughts, Yao decided. That, or maybe they had all already met Yong Soo and caught the stupid from him. After the school day had ended, Yao was glad to get out, because the endless barrage of questions was starting to get more than a little irritating. He had a wok at home, and he wasn't afraid to use it on the next person to approach him.

But, that didn't happen.

"Hey," a voice said.

Yao turned around.

It was that Russian kid who sat in the back of the room.

"Hello, aru," Yao said politely, after looking again to make sure it was _really_ the Russian. He raked his eyes up and down the other quickly, hoping he wouldn't notice. "Do I know you?"

"I am Ivan Braginski, comrade."

That name was… so familiar…

Wait.

"… I remember you," Yao said. "You gave me Shinatty!"

"I did! Please, wait one second," Ivan asked, and then began rummaging around through his backpack. Yao only had to wait a couple of moments before a stuffed panda was thrust into his hands by a rather embarrassed Ivan. This was certainly surprising. "Here. I was going to give this to you the next Christmas, and the one after that, and the one after that… but you were adopted, and I could never get a chance to go. It's past Christmas, I know, but I'm hoping this still counts."

"… It counts," Yao said after a moment of deliberation. He smile and hugged the panda close to him. "Hey, listen… are you busy tomorrow?"

"No," Ivan answered. His face lit up like Christmas lights decorating a suburban neighborhood street. "Not busy at all."

"Good."

* * *

**A/N**: Ahaha, lame? xD Typooooos~? I'm actually out of things to rant about; a first. This day shall forever live in infamy!


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